Saturday, August 9, 2014

Summer Sketchbook: The Wild Carrot

Summer had never been so colorful like it is this year! Probably, I haven't noticed that earlier because I wasn't so hooked on pastel painting?! Who knows... But this summer I have a great desire to paint everything I see, especially landscapes and flowers. 
Firstly, taking advantage of my small vacation I decided to escape from city life into a village area. And finally, I've found my small paradise: large meadows full of wild steppe flowers and wonderful Moldavian sceneries.
So, the flowers are the main theme of this beautiful and hot season, and here are some of my sketches. 

"Meadow: The shame"  Pastel  9x14cm
Once, my grandmother told me a legend about this flower. Many-many years ago the wild carrot flower looked different: the dark-red dot in the middle was larger and the people in the world were more decent, modest and kindhearted. Now, this dot is getting smaller and smaller, and when it disappears at all people will forget about the shame, and the world will become more cruel and careless. That's why it's called the Shame-flower. Seemes to be true!

"Queen Anne's lace" Pastel  10x15cm
The wild carrot or Daucus carota catched my attention, and I was surprised finding another name and another story. The flower was introduced and naturalised in North America, where it is known as "Queen Anne's lace". It is called so because the flower resembles lace; the red flower in the center is thought to represent a blood droplet where Queen Anne (Queen of Great Britain) pricked herself with a needle when she was making the lace. A nice and beautiful story.
 So, it depends on you which one you trust, but it's all about legend, because the function of the tiny red flower, coloured by anthocyanin, is to attract insects.
 But, if You know another story about the wild carrot flower, I would like to hear it! :)

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